Insecurities
by PT21
Summary: Abby is having an identity crisis and it's up to Gibbs to ease her mind


Insecurities

by Caz

Disclaimer in force

Rated K

"Do you think I'm sexy, Gibbs?"

Gibbs laughed into her hair as he squeezed her tight against his large body, mildly gyrating his hip against her waist, showing her just what he thought of her question, but he answered her just the same. "You bet I do. There is no man in this universe that would think otherwise. You ooze sex, Abby. Heck, I should know, even when I'm not with you, you still manage to do things to me that have me running for cover before I humiliate myself."

Abby spun within the circle of his arms to face him with surprise. "What do you mean?"

Gibbs's eyes rose with the almost silly question, but he couldn't decide if she was on one of her, 'I'm feeling vulnerable, make me feel better' moods, or if she was really having trouble understanding just what she did to a man.

Gibbs cringed at the memories, but wasn't ashamed of the cause. The day that Gibbs didn't get a hard on when he thought about Abby would be the day he was being buried at sea in a black box.

He brought his mind back to the present and looked down at the woman in his arms who was studying him intently. He could see another question brewing in her green fathomless eyes.

"So...what was it like, before I came along?"

{Uh oh}

"There's no comparison, Abby, I wasn't in love with any of those others."

"Not even a little bit?"

"Well," he started, "I 'did' have three wives, Abby, but they weren't anything like you, thank God." He felt obliged to add.

"And inbetween the wives, Gibbs?" Abby prodded relentlessly.

A red-head briefly flicked through his mind and disappeared even quicker as he answered her. "No. Before I met you, I'd never fallen in love. I stepped on it a couple of times, but that's all. It was all part of the game, Abby. You know how it is with some women. They want to feel special before they...before they succumb to a man's charms. Sure, I fell in love - for about two seconds flat, just long enough to get what I wanted."

She moved away from his arms and crossed her own as she thought about his rather crude but honest answer. But Gibbs didn't like what he saw as she prepared to batter him with another question.

"I think that's cruel, Gibbs. What if one, or some of those women fell in love with you. Does that mean you dumped them like you might dump me one day?"

{Uh oh}

Again the red-head flicked through his mind as he took a deep breath, every second feeling like he'd was digging himself into a hole with no ladder to climb back out. "Y'see, Abby, men have a reputation to uphold. Sure, I had girlfriends, and wives, and, sure I gave them my all while we were together. But they knew the score. I was a good time guy; A buddy that was a great friend and an even better lover with no strings attached. That was the way it was back then."

Abby circled him seemingly seeing him for the very first time. Really seeing him. She'd known he was no innocent when he'd first made love to her . And she'd known that if he hadn't have been, he wouldn't have introduced her to the most sacred and wonderful feelings she'd ever had, and had never had with any other since.

Because she 'had' fallen in love with him, just like that. What bothered her and confused the hell out of her, was why other women hadn't done the same. Sex was sex, she didn't think for a minute that what they did was any different to what he did with others.

Oh, she knew the love they had played a major factor in their unparalleled union, but what made a couple fall in love? Surely it was the intimate act of two people sharing their bodies and feelings.

Wasn't it?

"So...why was I so different. What did I have that others didn't? After all, you didn't know how it would be before us, before we'd made love. I want to know, Gibbs." she ordered.

Taking her hand, Gibbs tugged her over to the couch, pulling her onto his lap as he sat. She sat stiff and unwielding, waiting. He sighed, "Sex with other women is a bit like a gun. You aim, you shoot, you run."

He waited to see if she understood the double meaning. The feint blush to her high cheek bones told him she did. Linking his hands around her, he looked deeply into her eyes as he revealed what made her different, and special. Why he loved her.

"But I didn't want to run away from you, Abby. I wanted to be caught. I wanted to experience love with you; the kind of love that you have for me. I still feel it, Abby, every time I look at you, think of you and make love to you. There is no other woman for me, in my past, present or future. Only you."

She melted against his body and he held her close. They stayed like that for many long moments before Gibbs risked a question of his own, "What brought all that on, Abby, are you okay?"

She kissed his cheek lightly as she answered, "Yes, I'm fine. It was just something Ziva said. It just got me thinking, that's all."

Gibbs might have known the fiery Israelean had something to do with why the woman he loved was having an identity crisis. "Okay, out with it, what did the little vixen say now?"

Abby squirmed uncomfortably on his lap and Gibbs inwardly groaned as he tried to squelch the sudden heat in his loins from her movement. He tightened his grip on her, letting her believe that he was just giving her a hug, sighing with relief as she settled down again.

"Oh, we were talking about teasing people, and she said that I was a terrible tease. But I'm not, am I, Gibbs?"

Gibbs's features softened with sympathy now knowing that she had been the butt of a typical bullpit wind-up. "No, honey, you're not a tease. Well," he emended, "maybe just a little one. But it's one of the things that I love about you. How can you be a tease, Abby? A tease is someone who torments another when they can't get what they want. But I've got you anytime I want, every moment that I want. The only time you tease me, my love, is when you torment my loins at a moment that I can't whip you into a dark corner and seduce you."

"I don't do that!"

Gibbs grinned as he recalled a couple of such moments and he'd bet his best poker hand that that was the one that Ziva was tormenting her with. "Remember our last poker game, Abby?"

She frowned, but she did remember, "Uh huh, what about it?"

"Do you remember kicking your shoes off and putting them onto the bar on my chair as I sat opposite you?"

Now she was really perplexed, "Yes...so what, I always do it Gibbs, it keeps my tiny feet away from yours and Tony's huge plates."

"Oh, I'm not complaining, Abs, but whilst the ball of your feet are on the bar beneath my seat, where do you think your toes are?"

"They're against the cushion on the seat." And then the penny dropped. "Oh, my God, they're not are they? They're on... you!"

Gibbs beamed from ear to ear as he watched her blush a brighter shade of red, "See, I told you I wasn't complaining."


End file.
